Setting up Minecraft server on Linux Debian

This wasn’t one of our usual IT support jobs around Oxford and Oxfordshire – in fact, it wasn’t a job at all! My own kids asked if I could help them set up a private Minecraft server, so we turned it into a fun evening project.

To make it stable and efficient, we used virtualised Linux Debian 13 as the server platform – a reliable and secure choice for hosting multiplayer Minecraft worlds. In this guide, I’ll go through the exact steps we followed.

Installation and setup

Install a Linux Debian server on a VM host of your choice.
Log in as root
Update package index
sudo apt update
Install sudo
apt install sudo
Add your normal user account (not root) to sudoers
usermod -aG sudo username
Log back in as yourself
If you will be managing it from another machine, install and configure the SSH server.
sudo apt install openssh-server
sudo systemctl enable ssh –now
You may need to modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to allow password login and root access via SSH.
Reboot SSH after making changes to the above file: sudo systemctl restart ssh
Install minimal OpenJDK Java
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jre-headless
Verify installation
java -version
Install “Screen” to allow detachable server sessions (keep the Minecraft server running after disconnecting from the terminal)
sudo apt install screen
Start a named screen session and attach it
screen -S minecraft
screen -r
Create minecraft-server folder in /home
mkdir minecraft-server
Go to the minecraft-server folder
cd minecraft-server
On another PC, go to https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server, copy the download link for the latest version of Minecraft Server.
Run wget with the link copied in the previous step, i.e.
wget https://piston-data.mojang.com/v1/objects/84194a2f286ef7c14ed7ce0090dba59902951553/server.jar
Run the Minecraft Server
java -Xms1G -Xmx4G -jar server.jar nogui
This will fail at first, but it creates eula.txt and server.properties files.
Open eula.txt and set eula=true. Modify server.properties to your requirements.
Start the server again:
java -Xms1G -Xmx4G -jar server.jar nogui
The server should now start successfully and generate a new world.
You can now close the SSH session.
If external access is required, set up your firewall to forward TPC port 25565 to the Debian server’s IP.
If external access is allowed, don’t forget to enable the whitelist.